Violence towards children from ADD Wife

Hi - I'm new here, seeking advice and support on how to deal with violence from my Spouse who a social worker I spoke to thinks is likely ADD.

My wife goes back and forth from being a reasonable patient person to one who speaks in very mean tone and language to the children and at times will hit them.

I reached my bottom a few days ago after she hit our 7 year old daughter on the back. I'm against any hitting and in this case, it didn't seem to me that my daughter did anything wrong, just a misinterpretation from my wife.

That's when I called the social worker for advice. I spoke to my wife and didn't mention ADD, but said she needed help. She said she wasn't interested - but I think she'll come with me to the social worker within the structure of marriage advice.

I'm handing around the house during all the trigger times - the morning out to school push, lunch time feeding (my wife is obsessive about table manners and finishing the food), and bed time. I pitch in or take over when I start to hear that tone in my wife's voice start to change . . .

I do want to give up control here, and if it was only me, I'd be hands off, but I'm very concerned for the children.

My questions:

1) How do I protect the children from my ADD wife without controlling her?

2) If she is yelling at them or hitting them, do I intervene? (She hates it when I do that)

3) Her emotional affect seems kind of off to me. Like she is not really there, like she is buried somewhere inside. Is that typical of ADD?

Comments

I know that being irritable/easily angered is sometimes a part of ADD...but I would not jump on the diagnosis until your wife was fully evaluated.

What I would do though is tell her that if she ever laid another hand on my children again in anger, she would be finding herself somewhere else to live. YOU are the only voice your children will have at this point...please do not let them continue to be hit on because your wife has no control over herself.

She does need help...and the sooner the better.

To answer your questions:

1. You don't want to control her, but she HAS to get control of herself..if she's hitting the children out of anger then intervention needs to come no matter how 'controlled' she feels. Tough if she does, someone has to protect the children.

2. You need to record her during one of her 'tantrums'..let her see what she is doing, how she is behaving...secretly do it and show it to her later. You MUST protect your children..I don't know why this would even be a question you would ask.

3. Don't know the answer to this...but it does seem she has some very serious anger issues and is taking it all out on the children. She needs help. She cannot be happy and what she is doing to the children is unacceptable.